Taxi Industry, Beset by Trouble, Looks for Ways to Stay on Duty

New York City's medallion taxi industry, beset by higher fares, dwindling public support and the inroads of aggressive gypsy cabs, is as battered and shaky as some of the cars it operates on Manhattan streets.

Not since the depression, when drivers fought to earn $3 a day, has the industry been in worse shape, say the city's Taxi Commission, fleet owners and drivers.’

Here are some indications of the problems:

¶For almost 50 years, a New York City taxi medallion has been a prized possession. There are only 11,779 medallions available and, over the years, eager buyers have bid them up from the original price of $100 to $25,000 for a single cabowner's medallion and $14,000 for a fleet medallion. In recent months, more than 350 of these medallions have been turned back to the Taxi Commission as worthless.

¶Hundreds of licensed yellow cabs sit idle in the fleet garages, particularly on weekends and on the late night shifts, because no drivers can be found to take them out. Low earnings and a fear of robbery or assault have dissuaded thousands of would‐be drivers, the cabowners contend.

¶Complaints to the industry and to the Taxi Commission indicate that riders find many of the drivers unreliable and ignorant about the city, although the operators insist that their men still meet strict Taxi Commission standards.

¶At the same time, hundreds of cabs that are on the streets are battered and dirty, their springs worn and their upholstery ripped because the fleet owners say they no longer qualify for bank financing for new cars. The fleets traditionally have worked on a 16‐month or 18‐month cycle of replacing their cars. Now, they say, shrinking earnings have forced them into a 24‐month replacement cycle or, in some cases, possibly 30 months according to taxi industry sources.

¶To add to these woes, the Taxi Drivers Union, which says it represents virtually all of the 30,000 drivers in the city, is threatening another strike. At a meeting last week, the members authorized a walkout at an unspecified date if no contract is signed. The union has been without a contract since it was created and called its first strike late in 1970.

The Taxi Commission chairman, Michael J. Lazar, and the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, which represents the medallion fleets, say that the gypsy cabs are at the root of the industry's problems because they are siphoning off passengers and income. But they are far apart on what to do.

By most computations, there are now about 16,000 gypsy cabs in the city, Some work full time, others only on weekends or at the whim of their owners. But, together, they make up a $300‐million‐a‐year business that employes as many as 50,000 people, almost all of them blacks or Puerto Ricans.

Mr. Lazar has proposed several plans to legitimize at least some of these cars, but he has been thwarted by the Board of Estimate and the City Council, both with strong backing from the medallion industry.

Last month, he announced that, the Taxi Commission would begin issuing a special medallion to “limousines.” These would be all cars for hire operating out of bases equipped with two‐way radios. They would be barred from answering hails from the curb and from cruising for fares. And they would not be permitted to use taxi meters. Fares would be based on a zone system.

“The use of a meter implies cruising,” explained Abel Silver, an assistant Taxi Commissioner, “and it leads passengers to believe they are riding in a licensed, medallion cab.”

The Taxi Commission invited all gypsy drivers to join a base, discard their meters, and be licensed by the city. The gypsies responded by setting off several small riots in the South Bronx, by blocking traffic on major thoroughfares and by smashing and burning yellow medallion cabs.

Lazar Scores Police

Mr. Lazar has since made it clear that he never had any plan to forcibly remove meters from the gypsy cabs and, indeed, that he never had the authority to do so.

That has put everything back to where it was before.

The police, who are charged with arresting the gypsies who pick up fares on the streets, are reluctant to do so. They cite a lack of manpower, but, privately, they are concerned with fanning a volatile situation in the areas that the gypsies serve.

“The gypsies are the only cabs in this area,” said a policeman in the South Bronx. The yellow cabs don't come near this neighborhood.”

Mr. Lazar makes no secret of the fact that he is disappointed with the police response.

“I've come to the conclusion,” he said, “that any car operating outside our regulations has got to conduct himself like a gypsy. All a cop has to do is take notice long enough and the car is going to pick up along the street. I could pick up 30 violations in an hour of driving around.”

In reply, the Police Department says that precinct commanders have been directed as of last week to “make every effort to cooperate with representatives of the Taxi and Limousine Commission to secure compliance with limousine licensing requirements.”

Arthur Gore, an official of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, agrees that enforcement is the key to solving the gypsy cab problem for his drivers. But where Mr. Lazar wants new laws spelling out his powers, Mr. Gore said: “There are more laws on the books than we can use now. They're just never enforced.”

Charges Are Traded

“It's not just Mike Lazar,” he continued. “It's the complete lack of credibility in the Lindsay administration which has never fulfilled its promise to maintain order under the law.”

Mr. Lazar, who is part of the Lindsay administration, disagrees strenuously. “The Mayor has spent more time on this problem than many others,” he said. “His whole fight to establish a Taxi Commission showed how concerned he is about the taxi problem.”

Mr. Lazar insists that his year and a half as Commissioner has been dominated by his efforts to bring order into the industry and that it has been the industry that has thwarted him.

Indeed, the industry lobbied strongly against the creation of the commission. They have been more successful in killing Intro. 730, an amendment to Local Law 12, which would specify the commission's powers to regulate nonmedallion vehicles. Intro. 730 has been in committee in the City Council since last year.

Fight Over Station

Similarly, the Board of Estimate has managed, with strong industry support, to bottle up a request from Mr. Lazar for $1.9‐million to build a taxi inspection station in Queens. The industry contends that the center would actually cost $4‐million and that the cab owners would ultimately have to pay for it through high inspection fees.

The inspection station, situated in Long Island City, would check each cab or licensed livery vehicle for standard safety features—tires, brakes, lights, windshield wipers—and would also check exhaust emissions. The industry says that it would support a “mobile” inspection unit that came to the individual fleet garages and that did not charge a high fee.

Mr. Lazar insists that both the number of inspections per cab per year (he'd like three) and the fee (he has suggested $25 per inspection) are negotiable. He also contends that the Federal Environmental Protection Agency has offered a $200,000 grant for the station project and that about 90 per cent of all vehicular pollution in midtown Manhattan comes from taxicabs.

The inspection center proposal was defeated again by the Board of Estimate last week, mostly because of industry objections. “Nobody wants to change anything,” Mr. Lazar said later, “or to try anything that they're not absolutely sure is going to work.”

Innovations Promised

The inspection station is only one of a number of innovations promised by Mr. Lazar in the weeks after he first moved from the City Council to his $37,500‐a‐year commissioner's post. Among the others: group riding, citywide dispatching, the use of credit cards or scrip money, and new, comfortable vehicles.

“I'll tell you frankly,” he said the other day, “nothing will be done until we solve the gypsy problem. Until the taxi industry and the politicians they influence agree that the gypsies are here to stay and that we've got to deal with them realistically.”

The gypsies, meanwhile, appear to be thriving. They openly flaunt the mandates of the Taxi Commission, and appear to operate even in areas of the city that have traditionally been the preserves of the medallion yellow cabs. According to some medallion drivers, there are even gypsy cabs painted yellow, identical to the licensed taxis.

The medallion cabs have abdicated their right to serve our people,” said Jose Rivera, a gypsy operator in the Bronx. “Now the city would like to force us out of business, too.”

The taxi issue is an emotional one in the black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods where the gypsy industry leaders characterize the controversy as the Establishment against the poor.”

A Different Ecology

“Blacks, Puerto Ricans and poor whites don't vote,” said Ashley Andrews, a Brooklyn lawyer who represents gypsy drivers and cab owners. “It's nice to talk about ecology and inspection stations to end pollution. But what about the ecology of the nonmedallion industry, where people will starve if the city deprives them of their jobs?”

Mr. Andrews estimated that 98 per cent of the gypsy cars were more than five years old and would have difficulty meeting current emmission standards.

Mr. Lazar responded: “They never mention the fact that it is the poor who suffer when they are injured as passengers in an uninsured car, or that their taxi meters are wildly inaccurate and cheat the very poor people they want to serve.”

“We've got to get together,” Mr. Andrews says, “or we'll all starve.”

The Taxi Commission seems to agree. “Ultimatly, I will integrate this system,” he vows. “We've got to do it.”

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A version of this archives appears in print on October 17, 1972, on Page 43 of the New York edition with the headline: Taxi Industry, Beset by Trouble, Looks for Ways to Stay on Duty. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe